Apple, long known for its cutting-edge advertising (above), has lost the spotlight to rival Samsung, whose recent ad campaign pokes fun at people lining up for the iPhone 5—with a Samsung customer
saving a place in line for his parents. (AFP/Getty Images)

Apple’s ad campaigns have long been the envy of the business, but lately all Madison Avenue is talking about is rival Samsung.

Samsung got ahead of the iPhone 5 launch with a TV spot spoofing Apple users who planned to wait hours in line for a phone that lacked some features of the new Galaxy S III smartphone.

The ad, with the tagline “The Next Big Thing Is Already Here,” riffs on Apple’s classic “Mac vs. PC” campaign — but this time it’s Apple being mocked as the entrenched and uncool colossus.

The irreverent spot has racked up 17 million views on YouTube since its release a week ago and is generating 1.5 million to 2 million new views a day.

In contrast, Apple’s four TV spots for the iPhone 5 have drawn fewer than 5 million views collectively.

Apple’s historic Super Bowl spot “1984” depicting the masses as drones controlled by a “Big Brother” force and waiting to be set free. With a dramatic flourish the ad cleverly portrayed Apple as the insurgent tech company bent on shaking up less innovative rivals.

The company, along with its longtime ad agency TBWA, carried that upstart image through the years with campaigns such as “Think Different” and “Mac vs. PC,” which mocked Microsoft as eternally unhip.

Samsung’s ad spot, created by Los Angeles ad agency 72 and Sunny, is getting attention for taking that same concept and using it against Apple.

“It delivers line after line of cutting dialogue, pointing out the foibles of Apple fanaticism, makes a number of knowing inside references … and lowers the boom by calling into question Apple’s ‘coolness’ factor by mixing in a couple of decidedly non-hip baby-boomers clamoring for the new iPhone,” said Art Zeidman, US president at social video ad firm Unruly.

Zeidman noted that the timing of the ad helped it succeed as it began airing when lines started forming at the Apple stores ahead of the iPhone 5 launch.

According to Unruly, the Samsung spot notched 401,738 shares in the past week, while the highest ranking iPhone ad, titled “Cheese,” which demonstrates the phone’s panoramic camera, had 15,191 shares in the same period.

Yesterday, Samsung unleashed two new spots aimed at getting people to consider its Android-powered phone as a real alternative to the iPhone.

The Galaxy S III phone is expected to hit 30 million in worldwide sales by year’s end. Apple is expected to ship 25 million iPhone 5 units in the quarter ending this month.

Apple and Samsung have been at war over a $1 billion phone patent lawsuit that Samsung lost in the US.

Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Some on Madison Avenue are beginning to wonder if Apple is losing its marketing edge, especially with the loss of visionary co-founder Steve Jobs.

Marketing expert Claudia Caplan of ad agency RP3 said the jury is still out.

“Whether they can keep the flame lit is hard to say,” Caplan said. “He was the one that enforced the look and feel of everything, the devices and packaging and every place you encountered it. He was a person of superb taste and had the ability to enforce that taste.”